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BitcoinYield

Lending Yield Products

Products that pay interest for lending BTC to borrowers or lending markets.

two-prime-logo

Two Prime Axiom WBTC Vault

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Risk Score

Custody & Asset ControlSmart Contract & Execution RiskYield Source & Economic SustainabilityLiquidity & Exit DynamicsTransparency & Verifiability
Rate1.60%APR
CategoryLending
TVL$11.06M
Custodythird-party
Reward AssetWBTC
KYCYes
View Details
zest-logo

Zest Protocol

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Risk Score

Custody & Asset ControlSmart Contract & Execution RiskYield Source & Economic SustainabilityLiquidity & Exit DynamicsTransparency & Verifiability
Rate0.96%APY
CategoryLending
TVL$18.19M
Custodymultisig
Reward AssetsBTC
KYCNo
View Details

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about Bitcoin yield

Bitcoin Yield Risk Framework

Version 1.2

This framework evaluates Bitcoin yield products across five pillars: Custody & Asset Control, Smart Contract & Execution Risk, Yield Source & Economic Sustainability, Liquidity & Exit Dynamics, and Transparency & Verifiability.

Scoring principle

We prioritize the risk of capital impairment. A product is judged by how easily user principal can be impaired, not by how decentralized or elegant it looks on paper.

1. Custody & Asset Control

Who controls access to the underlying BTC, and can user principal be withheld, seized, or frozen by a single party?

Green · Trust-Minimized / User-Enforced — users retain unilateral or protocol-enforced claim to BTC without relying on a single entity’s discretion. Recovery is governed by Bitcoin-native or credibly decentralized rules.

Yellow · Quorum / Qualified Custodian — recovery depends on an honest quorum, bridge signer set, federation, or regulated custodian rather than direct user control.

Red · Single-Entity Dependency — recovery depends on one company or legal structure that can freeze access, fail operationally, or leave users structurally exposed in insolvency.

2. Smart Contract & Execution Risk

If the code fails or admins intervene, how much user principal can actually be impaired?

Green · Limited Blast Radius — contracts are immutable or tightly scoped, and a contract failure would not directly allow unilateral loss of core user principal. Operational disruption may still be possible.

Yellow · Admin Guardrails / Contained Control — the protocol is upgradable, pauseable, or still maturing, but admin powers are primarily defensive and do not create clean unilateral control over principal.

Red · Direct Fund Control / Unbounded Blast Radius — a contract exploit or admin action can directly move collateral, rewrite withdrawal rules instantly, or materially impair principal.

3. Yield Source & Economic Sustainability

Does the yield come from durable economic activity, or from subsidies, reflexivity, and fragile strategy dependence?

Green · Economically Real / Non-Reflexive — yield comes from identifiable economic activity and would still exist if token incentives disappeared. The payout may vary with market conditions but is not sustained by emissions.

Yellow · Real Yield, Material Dependencies — yield is economically real, but a meaningful share depends on active management, basis spreads, counterparties, credit underwriting, market structure, or temporary incentive support.

Red · Reflexive / Fragile — yield depends primarily on token emissions, undercollateralized credit, aggressive leverage, or structures that weaken when new capital slows or incentives fade.

4. Liquidity & Exit Dynamics

How quickly and reliably can a user redeem back to base BTC during stress?

Green · Immediate & Rules-Based — users can redeem on demand with no protocol-enforced queue, lock, or discretionary gate.

Yellow · Queued / Market-Dependent — exits are allowed, but require notice, unbonding, cool-down periods, batch processing, or reliance on secondary-market liquidity.

Red · Locked / Discretionary — exits can be blocked by fixed lockups, manual intervention, legal restrictions, or terms that allow the operator to pause redemptions during stress.

5. Transparency & Verifiability

Can I independently verify the assets, liabilities, and yield path with minimal trust and minimal delay?

Green · Continuously Verifiable — a third party can independently verify solvency, backing, and strategy exposure on a continuous or near-real-time basis, either on-chain or via public cryptographic attestations.

Yellow · Delayed / Partial Attestation — transparency is present but delayed, incomplete, or dependent on a single authorized verifier (e.g., periodic proof-of-reserves, monthly auditor reports, proof of assets without liabilities).

Red · Opaque / Black Box — no cryptographic proof of reserves, hidden wallet addresses or counterparties, omitted liabilities, or a proprietary non-auditable yield engine.

How we score

Every pillar has an objective Pass/Fail check. A product cannot score Green on any pillar unless the supporting evidence is explicit in the research report.

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